Passengers got a musical welcome

P&O Orient Lines' SS Iberia

Reader Margo Mills Fallis writes in with a memory of the Port:

"In 1962 our ship, SS Iberia, docked in Long Beach. My parents and four of their five children, including me, had left Sydney, Australia to sail to America and start a new Life. I was nearly ten years old at the time.

"As the ship docked, I remember there was a band playing 'California Here We Come.' That stuck in my mind to this day (now age 57).

"We were taken to huge building and our luggage was there, stacked higher than I was. We were there for a very long time and I was so tired."

That band playing for the incoming passengers was none other than the Long Beach Municipal Band, which will hold its season-opening concert this year at the Port's 100th Birthday Party on Saturday, June 25.

The Municipal Band often played for passengers of incoming passenger liners, which in those days were mostly from the P&O Orient Line, in the 1950s and '60s as part of a program to welcome visitors to Long Beach. The program, which was started by the Downtown Kiwanis Club, provided telephone facilities and personal help for incoming passengers who might need to see a doctor or dentist, for instance, or just find out how to get to Disneyland.

One notable occasion for a Municipal Band performance, pictured below, came in December 1962, after another P&O liner, the Oriana, collided with the Navy carrier Kearsarge in dense fog off the coast of Long Beach. While the Oriana underwent repairs, the Port, city and Chamber of Commerce, along with private individuals and other civic groups, donated funds for the stranded passengers to be entertained at local homes and attractions, including the music of the renowned Long Beach band.

For more about the Municipal Band, go to www.polb.com/municipalband

For more about the Port's 100th Birthday Party, go to www.polb.com/birthday

Click here for photos and more information about the SS Iberia

The Long Beach Municipal Band gives a concert to the stranded passengers of the liner Oriana in December 1962.

Memorable evening on the Missouri

The USS Missouri undergoing refitting at the Long Beach
Naval Shipyard in 1985. (U.S. Navy photo)

Reader Mary Barton of Long Beach wrote to share the following memory with us:

One of the most memorable evenings of my life occurred on the deck of a Navy ship at the Port of Long Beach.

Both my parents were in the South Pacific during World War II -- my mother, Hazel Barton, as an Army nurse stationed at various island field hospitals, and my father, Patrick Barton, as a member of the Signal Corps. Thus, as a small child born just after the War, my earliest memories are of my parents' war stories -- some grisly but all quite compelling.  No doubt those vivid stories prompted my lifelong interest in Japan and her people.

So, when the U.S.S. Missouri was docked at the L.B. Naval Station in the early 1990's on one of her last voyages, I was thrilled to be part of a private group who toured her decks.  I was mesmerized at the spot where Gen. MacArthur accepted the Japanese surrender -- only a few feet from the turret of a large anti-aircraft gun. I recalled the newsreels of that signing, with the Japanese in coats and tails and MacArthur in his fatigues. A fitting ending to a horrific war.

But the incredible irony of the event was this: My companions that evening were mostly Japanese!  As a member of a unique study group of some locals and some Japanese expatriate executives, we met monthly for dinner at interesting places. Together some 40+ years after the surrender, we wandered the very site of that surrender, which ultimately made our friendship possible.  I'll never forget them nor that evening on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri.

Elvis at the Port, 1964

The Potomac, looking somewhat the worse for wear, at the Port of Long Beach in January 1964. Port of Long Beach photo.

Famous vessels and famous faces are no strangers to the Port of Long Beach. The Port has welcomed the USS Constitution and the Queen Mary, for instance, and notables including Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Arnold Schwarzenegger, just to name a few. But only one chapter in the Port's 100-year history involved both a president and a king, or rather The King.

For a short time in the early 1960s, the Port of Long Beach was home to the Potomac, a 165-foot-long vessel that from 1936 to 1945 was the presidential yacht of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. For part of the Potomac's brief stay in Long Beach, the yacht was owned by someone arguably even more famous than FDR: Elvis Presley.

After FDR's death in 1945, the Potomac passed through a number of hands and ended up in early 1964 -- in a somewhat dilapidated condition -- here in Long Beach.

Danny Thomas and Elvis Presley aboard the Potomac for handover ceremonies at the Port of Long Beach, February 3, 1964. This was the only time Elvis set foot on the yacht. Photo courtesy of the USS Potomac Museum, http://www.usspotomac.org.

Elvis Presley bought the Potomac in January 1964 for $55,000, intending to present the vessel to the March of Dimes, the charity founded by FDR in the 1930s to fight polio. The March of Dimes ended up refusing the gift because of the upkeep involved.

Elvis then offered the yacht to the Miami Seventh Coast Guard Auxiliary, who accepted; presentation ceremonies were planned in Long Beach. But then the Navy got wind of the Auxiliary's plans for the Potomac, which were to sell it for scrap and purchase a new clubhouse, and blocked the donation.

With two avenues closed, attention turned to a favorite charity of Elvis': St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. February 3, 1964 was set for a ceremony to hand the vessel over to another famous name, Danny Thomas, founder of the hospital.

From Walter Jaffe's book "The Presidential Yacht Potomac":

After months of neglect the Potomac was in poor condition and had to be cleaned up for the ceremony. A few days before the event [Elvis' manager] Colonel Parker contacted [the Port] asking how much it would cost to have the boat cleaned up and painted for the dedication. He was told it would take at least three days and $18,000 to make the Potomac presentable. There wasn't that much time. The Colonel then asked, "How much if you just paint the side that faces the dock?" He was told that for $8,000 they could do what he wanted and rope off the unpainted parts. The Colonel said, "Do it."

The handover ceremony was held in Long Beach as planned on February 3, with Elvis (the only time he set foot on the boat), Thomas, members of Elvis' "Memphis Mafia," the media and fans in attendance. St. Jude's originally planned to take the yacht to Memphis and turn it into a floating restaurant, but the logistical and financial impracticalities of that led the hospital to sell the yacht, which left Long Beach and continued on its unusual journey.

The vessel passed through a succession of owners -- at one time it was seized as a front for drug smugglers -- before being abandoned in the East Bay Estuary near Oakland.

Shortly before the one-time "Floating White House" was due to be sold for scrap, it was purchased by the Port of Oakland and turned into a museum; today you can tour the vessel and even go on cruises aboard what's now a National Historic Landmark.

We'd like to extend a special thanks to the Potomac Museum in Oakland for providing much of the material for this article. For more information about the museum and the historic vessel, visit their website at http://www.usspotomac.org/.